The judge’s ruling blocks Immigration and Customs Enforcement from arresting people at immigration courtrooms nationwide and undoes a related detention waiver, citing failures in the government’s administrative process; the decision pauses enforcement tactics tied to the 2025 policy changes and raises immediate questions about how removal orders will be executed inside the very courts handling those cases.
The federal decision from U.S. District Judge P. Casey Pitts, a Biden appointee in California, invalidated two 2025 policies: one allowing arrests at immigration court hearings and another extending short-term holding beyond a prior 12-hour limit. The court framed its ruling not as a denial of ICE authority but as a finding that the agencies did not follow proper Administrative Procedure Act steps when reversing earlier restrictions.
The practical effect is blunt. If an immigration judge orders removal, ICE’s ability to take someone into custody at the courthouse is now restricted in much of the country while the order stands. The court emphasized that prior guidance warned courthouse arrests could discourage noncitizens from attending hearings and could undermine courtroom access and public confidence in the separate roles of judges and enforcement agents.
The administration’s perspective is straightforward: when someone is present for their hearing and an order to remove has been entered, ICE should be able to take that person into custody where they can be found. Department of Homeland Security General Counsel James Percival criticized the ruling as a bar on a basic enforcement tool and warned about the practical consequences for carrying out removal orders.
Republican officials seized on the decision to argue that the judge overreached and that the ruling hampers public safety and the rule of law. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis publicly attacked the ruling as harmful to enforcement efforts and to communities seeking order at the border and within the immigration system. Those critics say administrative technicalities should not be allowed to paralyze enforcement that follows judicial determinations.
Iowa Solicitor General Eric Wessan bluntly wrote that “no law limits ICE arrests at courthouses” and questioned how the agency could be prevented from arresting “criminal illegal aliens that happen to be at a courthouse.” That line of argument presses the point that the ruling is about process rather than a principled restriction on enforcement authority itself.
https://x.com/DHSGenCounsel/status/2069551898231730568
The judge noted evidence that arrests at immigration courthouses rose after the 2025 policy change and cited reports of reduced attendance at master calendar hearings in San Francisco after enforcement activity increased. Pitts faulted the agencies for not adequately explaining why the old concerns about chilling attendance and courtroom access no longer mattered when the restrictions were rescinded.
The detention waiver drew separate scrutiny. ICE had temporarily waived its long-standing 12-hour limit on short-term holding facilities, citing enforcement surges and a lack of detention space, allowing detainees to be held longer in those facilities. Pitts said the agency did not sufficiently consider alternatives or whether processing facilities were fit for overnight or multi-day detention, so he vacated the waiver alongside the courthouse-arrest policy.
The decision follows a similar ruling in New York from U.S. District Judge P. Kevin Castel, which also found the administration’s rollback of prior limits arbitrary and capricious. Those parallel opinions have produced a patchwork of court orders that complicate ICE’s nationwide enforcement plans and invite quick appellate fights in the federal circuit courts.
The Department of Justice had not announced an appeal immediately, though an emergency appeal to the Ninth Circuit is likely given the nationwide reach of the order and the administration’s interest in restoring its 2025 enforcement tools. In the short term, ICE must navigate another judicial limitation inside the immigration system where removal cases are adjudicated.
Editor’s Note: Unelected federal judges are hijacking President Trump’s agenda and insulting the will of the people.
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